January 19, 2002	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 4, 1422

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MULATN, Jan 18: Telephone bills for the month of December have surprised the people who participated in the ‘SAF Star Quiz’ in September and October last through what then was said ‘toll free’ telephone calls.

The calls made to the quiz are counted under the head of VMS/0900. This entry has first appeared on the PTCL bills last month for the calls of November. But, then no call was reported under the VMS/0900 head in the bills.

The ministry of sports launched an extensive campaign in the second and third quarter of the last calender year for the fund-raising for SAF Games scheduled to be held in October last. Besides, a quiz was also introduced as a part of publicity campaign to make the event popular among the masses. The Games were, however, postponed and now are likely to be held in April next.

The interested people were asked to answer the quiz entries through the toll free number of 090027933. Assuming it toll free, people across the country took part in the quiz in a large number. Some of the people registered their entries against every person of their family, perhaps, to increase chances of winning awards.

Interestingly, the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited has started charging against the VMS/0900 calls at the rate of Rs22.11 per minute. It took normally two to four minutes to reply the quiz entries, a PTCL subscriber told this correspondent at the local PTCL office.

The embarrassed people have started turning up to the PTCL offices where the officials concerned have no answer to their queries.

“Complaints are pouring in but we cannot give any justification for being unaware of the decision,” a senior PTCL official said.

Addition of another head, that is, phonograph charges 0800 on the PTCL bill statement is another source of nuisance for the subscribers as currently PTCL provides toll free services like registration of complaints and use of pre-paid PTCL cards through the digital phones.

“Though, in the current bills the official phone company did not ask to pay phonograph charges but it can demand in future like it has done in the case of VMS/0900 charges,” a subscriber remarked.